Just price for drugs: the eleventh hour

By Marc-André GagnonFeb. 4, 2019

For Canadians, it should be a reminder that we need to modernize our PMPRB watchdog to achieve 'just prices' and get rid of our irrational policies that serves corporate welfare to the detriment of patients.

Among all OECD countries, Canada ends up with the highest prices for patented drugs, behind the United States and Switzerland. We pay on average 25 per cent more on the price of patented drugs as compared to the median of OECD countries in the hope to attract investment in research and development (R&D), writes Marc-André Gagnon. Image courtesy of Pixabay

The concept of “Just Price” goes back to medieval scholastic economic thinking, which was dominant for 500 years. To ensure that the price is just, authorities had to determine that the merchant was not exploiting other people’s misery by charging excessive price and inducing dearth (caristia inducatur). People should make profit by serving others, not by abusing them.

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